You're So Hypnotising
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: When you have two best friends, who do you know who to just love and who to be IN love with? Scorpius/Rose/Albus. Oneshot.


_You're so hypnotising  
Could you be the devil? Could you be an angel?  
Your touch magnetising  
Feels like I am floating, leaves my body glowing  
__**~Katy Perry, E.T~**_

* * *

She feels the pounding of the music vibrating through her body as she moves in time with the music, bodies swaying in quick succession as they all dance their hearts out on the dance floor. Sweat pours out of her body, lathering her skin in a thick coating of the stuff, but she doesn't care. She's enjoying herself… and that's all that matters.

Her wand is hidden in a pouch attached to her leg but she doesn't think she'll need it: it's only a Muggle club; it's not like she is going to be attacked by wizards or anything. But the paranoia of her parents and other close relatives makes her think that it's best to be on the safe side… after all, her parents and Uncle Harry got caught by Death Eaters in a _café_.

"Rose, are you ok?" Albus yells into her ear to be heard over the pumping of the music, even though he is standing right next to her. She nods her head, deciding that to speak would be pointless, her soft voice would never be able to be heard in here, and continues to dance with him. She pulls his arms this way and that, trying to get him into the dance, to realise what _fun_ this dancing is. Soon he does and his light blue polo shirt is covered with both his and Rose's sweat, his face stretched out into an exorbitant grin.

"I'll get drinks!" he yells as the fifth song ends and she realises that she is entirely parched. So she nods and motions to him that she'll be in the booth in the corner of the room, the one reserved under their name as usual on a Wednesday night. Since their nineteenth birthdays two years ago they have been coming here and it has always been on a Wednesday. By now, the staff know them, know what drinks they have and _always_ admire the couple who are so immaculately dressed and so beautiful. Although the pair insists they are only friends, the staff aren't so sure but still enjoy to marvel over the two of them.

Breathing heavily to try and get some energy back, Rose sits down in the booth and leans her head back against the stiff leather cushion. Her wand digs into her leg so she lifts the bottom of her (very short –if her dad could see her wearing this he would _kill_ her) pleated red dress and removes the thin piece of wood from her leg, feeling the relief as the point stops digging in.

Wondering what to do with it, she decides to do one of the enlargement charms her mother taught her to do surreptitiously on her clutch bag so that she doesn't have to carry it. She always considered doing this before but then the worry of what if she lost her bag hit her and so she normally goes for the cautious route.

But something about her tonight decides that she may as well chance it; that if someone _really_ wants her bag she can get Albus to get it back or just get a new wand – it isn't irreplaceable. So she shrugs as she completes casting the non-verbal charm, sliding the piece of wood in without issue: thank god for an overprotective mother who decided she needed to know _every_ spell that she did by her age!

"They were out of the blue ones so I had to get the purple," Albus says apologetically as he motions to her WKD: they drink the Muggle alcohol when they're in the Muggle clubs and it isn't half bad. Albus has a bottle of Stella Artois, a particular favourite of his at the current moment, though Rose doesn't doubt that he will revert back to whiskey again soon.

"That's great!" she says with a grin, taking a sip of the drink she has grown to love over the years. Over here, the music is less intrusive, though it is still a struggle to hear one another if you don't at least talk in a louder than usual voice. "So, how was Mandy?" she asks her best friend about his date of the other night, expecting some sort of enthusiasm rather than the half hearted shrug he actually gives her.

"I broke up with her," he explains as he realises the girl genius wants a bit more explanation than a simple shrug.

"_Why_?" she asks, aghast that she put so much time and effort into getting those two together just for him to dump her _after three dates_.

"She isn't the one for me, Rosie," he says with a cheeky grin, using the nickname he made for her when they were both three years old and he decided that Rose was a horrid name and needed a second syllable, like his… of course, he didn't go into the structure of names at such a tender age, but he knew what he was talking about.

"Well neither was Louise, or Henrietta, or even _Jessica_ and she is _everyone's_ type," Rose says, getting slightly exasperated with her friend's pickiness. He doesn't seem to like any of the girls that she picks for him and, to be honest; she's running out of possible matches. "I think you're going to end up with a Muggle at this rate," she says with a small smile, indicating the growing number of girls who are getting closer to their table, all keen to entice Albus away from Rose.

"Excuse me, would you like to dance?" a particularly bold girl in a dress that makes Rose blush asks Albus pointedly. The utter beauty of her, the way that she is so tall and statuesque, makes Rose feel short, fat and inadequate, sending an unmistakable rush of jealousy through her.

_It's because he's my best friend_, she counters the emotion with, also indicating the third WKD she has had this evening in her mind. But she can't hide her relief when Albus says, "No thank you. I'm with someone already."

The tall blonde walks away without another word and the gaggle of girls with her all follow, knowing that Albus isn't viable if he doesn't go for the Queen Bee from their group. Albus gives Rose a small wink and takes her hand in order to keep up with the pretences, something they have to do every single week, be it someone for Rose or for him.

"What _I_ want to know," Albus yells at Rose as the music is suddenly turned up as Katy Perry is put on. "Is why you take such an interest in _my_ love life when you don't have one of your own," he continues the sentence after a short pause when he realises that she wouldn't have a hope in hell of hearing him over the music.

She shrugs, trying to ignore the feelings she has had for about five years for her other best friend, Scorpius Malfoy. She hasn't ever wanted to admit these for fear that it would destroy their friendship, that they wouldn't make it through it if they broke up. She didn't want to put Albus in the middle of that… so she tried to keep the feelings a secret… but she feels a blush forming on her cheeks as Albus says these words, making him realise that there _is_ someone she likes.

"Rosie, _who_ do you like?" he asks her with a wicked grin, daring her almost to tell him. but she shakes her head and simply motions to her now empty bottle, indicating to him that she wants a refill.

The bar is choccablock, so she decides that _one_ simple refilling spell won't break the intake for the night for the bar, that they won't suffer greatly. So she slides her wand out of her bag and refills both their drinks quickly, causing Albus to raise an eyebrow in shock.

"And there was me thinking that my best friend was a goody two shoes?" he asks her with a hint of pride in his voice; he had followed on after his brother, James, in being a prankster and so he's glad that the Weasley spirit is alive in little Rose as well.

"Shut up," she says with a deeper blush, but she can't tell why she is blushing right now. She isn't thinking of Scorpius, but rather of Albus… oh god, this is confusing. She doesn't know _what_ she feels but knows that she desires a good drink…

OoOo

Three hours later, she feels almost comatose and has to lean heavily on Albus as he leads her out of the club. "You're too drunk to Apparate," he informs her, his voice inflicting no emotion whatsoever. She simply giggles at this, so he decides whether or not he has enough money on him for a taxi back to their home on the North side of London before flailing one down.

"Albie?" she changes his name as she does every now and then, usually in a drunken moment, as she wraps her arm around him in the taxi. The closeness of her skin to him makes him want to pounce on her, to reveal his love for her now… but that wouldn't be fair. She's drunk and he doesn't want to take advantage.

"Uhuh, Rosie?" he says in a gentle tone to her before telling the driver to take them home.

"I love you," she says, but it's in the wispy voice that she usually uses when she's drunk, making him not entirely sure if he can believe her or not. So he settles for tightening his grip on her waist as the taxi lurches slightly, deciding that if she sobers up by the morning, before he goes to work, he could laugh this off with her and see her sober reaction.

They get home in fifteen minutes, due to the absence of traffic in the middle of the night, and Albus pays before helping Rose out of the taxi. She ends up falling over on the pavement, giggling manically as she does so, making him sigh as he picks her up and uses a charm to heal her scraped knees. From here, he decides the path up to their house is too dangerous – Scorp _still_ hasn't cleared the weeds away – so he lifts her into his arms, bridal style, and carries her down the path. He isn't drunk whatsoever, the couple of beers he had earlier entirely eradicated from his system, because he knows that when she drinks, she drinks. He needs to be the responsible one… but he doesn't mind because it's for the girl he loves, the one who is also his best friend.

"Albus," she says his name as he sets her down in the hallway of their house. Quickly, so that she doesn't disturb Scorpius' sleep, he casts a silencing charm on the upstairs of the house so that he doesn't have to hear her gigglings.

"Yes, Rose?" he asks her what she wants as she follows him into the living room. Here, he slips off his shoes and jacket, throwing them onto the unit on the other side of the room and causing a massive mess but not caring because he knows it'll be sorted by Rose whenever she gets a massive cleaning head on again.

"I love you," she repeats and no matter how much he tries to insist to himself that it's just the drink talking, he can't. He responds to this as he turns around to face her and smiles, imagining kissing her perfect lips, holding her soft skinned face between his hands.

This isn't a fantasy for much longer: with the decisive lack of obstacle between the two of them, Rose stumbles forwards and presses her lips to his, the smell of alcohol rife in the air. But he ignores this as he feels the soft plumpness of her lips against his, feels the transfer of her lipgloss onto his lips, feels the delight he has been waiting to feel for so long that she is kissing him.

His hands snake up to frame her face, pushing her long brown hair back from her face as he rubs her skin in circles for some reason. He loses control of what is right and simply acts instinctively, kissing her back just as hard as she is kissing him.

Within minutes, however, he remembers that she is drunk and this is technically taking advantage of her, so he removes himself from her grasp and puts her under a sleeping charm so she doesn't feel dejected. He catches her in his arms, grinning widely as he processes the fact that _she kissed him_, before carrying her, once again, up the stairs and towards her room. Here, he places her lightly on her bed and wraps the covers around her, pressing a light kiss to her forehead before walking out of the room and to his own. But he doesn't sleep, he doesn't have the ability. He has found her hypnotising for so long, that to have her now seems almost impossible, futile, dreamlike.

OoOo

Rose wakes up with a huge headache, wondering what _happened_ the night before to make her feel so crap. With a shudder, she looks over at the clock and realises that it's 10am, that she has slept in. so she shoots up in alarm, her head causing huge waves of pain through her body before remembering that this is Thursday, it's her day off from work. Just like it's Scorpius'.

She can't remember much about last night, but she knows that she realised _sometime_ that she ought to tell the fair haired beauty how she feels about him. Maybe that was the drink talking, but if that is the only thing she can really remember, she ought to do it. So she swings her legs out of bed and takes the hangover remedy she has handy by her bed for Thursday mornings, swigging it back like orange juice until the headache feels as if it is simply a ghost.

From here she undresses and showers, removing the filmy layer of grime and sweat she worked up last night on her many hours on the dance floor. Then she redresses, this time in a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt because she still feels like crap, no matter how little of a headache she has.

"Hey, Scorp," she calls through the living room to the kitchen as she emerges from hibernation at 10:30am. He smiles as he sees her, the waves of tingling excitement at seeing the one he has loved for so long again hitting him like a tonne of bricks as he observes her simple opinion.

People have said before that Rose, compared to her cousins, is the plain one of the family, but Scorpius disagrees. Rose has this natural intelligence about her appearance, evident in the planes of her face, the way that she holds her mouth. Her eyes are wide and open, glimmering whether the sunlight is on them or not, and the English Rose complexion of her skin only makes her look ever the more beautiful. She holds herself with her shoulders hunched over, lacking self confidence, but Scorpius doesn't see why. After all, she's the most beautiful thing to him, the centre of his universe.

"Have a good night?" he asks her conversationally, pouring a cup of extra strong coffee to help her with her hangover. He can't help but feel jealous at this, the way that Albus gets her all to himself every week but he has to work on a Wednesday night, so he can't go out. It's good for her to go out, he decides with a heavy heart, she's best friends with Albus as well… but he can't help but worry that Albus loves her and that he is making a move on her at night.

"It was fine," she groans, downing the coffee in one go and refilling it with the wand in her pocket. She drinks this, albeit slightly slower, before refilling once again.

"Hold your horses, Rose, otherwise you'll be higher than a kite!" Scorpius limits her coffee to a third cup, instead replacing it with a glass of water and a cooked breakfast. This kind gesture makes her boundaries fall down and she realises that she needs to tell him _now_ how she feels, no matter the niggling feeling she is now getting that she did something last night she probably regrets, said something that she shouldn't have done.

"Scorpius, I need to talk to you," she says slowly, once she has finished the breakfast he made for her. He shrugs and nods his head at the same time, sitting down next to her at the wooden table his mother had bought for him when he paid 1/3 of the deposit for the house.

"What's up?" he asks her in his usual tone, taking her hand naturally as he does every time that she has something troubling her. This makes a rush of affection run through Rose and she realises that she has been holding back her feelings for far too long, that she can't keep them a secret any longer.

"Scorpius, last night I realised something," she begins slowly, wondering whether or not he will feel the same way. "I… I realised that I have been keeping my feelings for you quiet for far too long and that it is time to tell you… to tell you that I love you," she takes a deep breath and wonders what he is going to say, whether he will tell her that he doesn't feel the same way or maybe, just maybe, that he feels the same way.

There is a long pause and with every passing second she wishes that she never told him, that she had kept it quiet and just moved on with her life. But then he looks deep into her eyes and a connection springs up between them, a deeper one than they had before, as just friends. He realises that she has broached the subject, doing it in a much more concise way than he would have done it, and he is thankful that he didn't have to take the first step.

"Rose… I have loved you since that day in second year when you fell backwards into the lake and I dived in to rescue you," he confesses to her slowly, not once looking away from her eyes. She realises that she _didn't_ make a mistake in telling him, that he feels the same way as her and that he loves her back. "I have wanted to tell you that for so long but I didn't think… I didn't think that you loved me back," he confesses quietly.

Suddenly, she is moving forwards and pressing her lips to his slowly, smoothly, savouring the moment. His hand wraps into her long and loose hair, pulling her closer to him as he processes that she is kissing him rather than the other way around.

A clattering behind them startles them and they both turn around to see Albus staring at them, wondering what the hell is going on. Tears begin to form in his eyes as he sees _his_ Rose kissing his best friend, and he forgets that she was drunk last night. The only thing he remembers is her kissing him, her telling him he loves her.

He throws the umbrella in his hands on the floor and turns away to walk out of the door, out into the hallway and then out into the open Muggle world. Something in Rose's heart is breaking at seeing him leave so she rushes after him crying, "Albus wait! Please, wait!"

But he doesn't wait and so she has to run down the street after him, cursing her short legs in comparison to his because she can't make up the ground as quickly as he does. But she uses a few shortcuts and second guesses his destination, finally meeting up with him in the park around the corner from their house, and sees the fountain of tears spewing from his eyes.

"Albus, what's wrong?" she asks him gently, sitting down next to him. Though he doesn't want her there, he doesn't run away again and simply sits for a moment, anger a bubble around him.

"What's _wrong_ is that I come in to see my best friend kissing the girl who, last night, told me that she loved me and then kissed me!" he spits out at her, wiping his tears away with a vengeance.

She is stunned; she doesn't remember a single bit of that and for a second thinks he is making it up before remembering that Albus never lies. "I don't remember," she whispers to him, turning to see him with new eyes. _That's _why he didn't stay with any of the dates she set up for him; he loves her and wanted _her. _He just didn't know that her heart already belonged to Scorpius, that anything else was a lie for how she truly feels.

"I can guess," he says venomously, before shaking his head. "Look, Rose, I'm sorry for snapping it's just…" he trails off, not sure how to put how he feels into words.

She nods her head and places her hand on his shoulder in comfort, her eyes brimming with tears. With a wrench, she realises that she loves him back but that part of her pales in comparison to her love for Scorpius… he's more of a friend than anything else.

"I'm sorry, Albus, for leading you on," she says gently, and he knows now that she doesn't want to be with him, that she wants Scorpius. "But at least now you know that you can be with any of these other girls, eh? I love you as a _friend_," she says with a small grin, trying to find a way to bring some humour into the situation if possible.

"Yeah, I guess I could give Mandy a call back," he says with a thoughtful smile. "After all, she _did_ rock those jeans," he continues, grinning back at Rose. Whilst it may take him more time than this to get over her, he knows that she must be happy with Scorpius and that is all that matters.

She looks at him, offended for a second, before hitting him on the arm, hard. "_Don't_ talk about girls like that!" she says to him, mock outrage her focal tone in her voice. He grins and stands up, offering her his arm as they walk back to their house at a normal speed.

On the way back, he realises that this is how it is _supposed_ to be: they're best friends and she was always Scorpius', he just never realised.

"Hey, Rose," he says as they approach their house.

"Uhuh, Mr Potter?" she responds, mocking his surname as usual.

"At least I know which eejit I have to beat up if he ever hurts you – and I can get past his defences on his room!" he laughs, bounding up the stairs to the house. He is going to call Mandy and give her a fresh chance, now he knows he can't have Rose, allowing his friends to be happy togeether.

They deserve it.

* * *

_Whatcha think?_

_Please review!_

_Vicky xx_


End file.
